October Days

Hello Friends! 

In other news, I keep a large 500ml refillable pump of 70% alcohol hand sanitising gel on the small telephone stand in the hall.  It's a practice I established when I was caring for my mother.  It's centrally located in my cottage, and makes it conveniently quicker and easier to splodge out a blob if someone comes to the door than it is to wrestle with the fiddlier pocket size ones.  So, I gave this important corner a little seasonal makeover with some of my many pinecones.. 

I treated myself to two new, Autumn fragrance, Yankee Candles.  I love the warm and comforting gentle glow of candle light, and they have a good throw of fragrance that's just right for my living room.  This one is Autumn Glow, full of a soft, seasonal warmth of patchouli, which I love.  It is a rich, deep plum colour, which I favour, and in the dark evening it glows like light shining through a glass of good Bordeaux wine.

I have several Mary Engelbreit books, and haven't forgotten I promised to share my Autumn and seasonal books too!  Another day!

Humphrey Dormouse has a big bag of swag over his shoulder.  I think he's been out foraging the fields and hedgerows for his Autumn kitchen store cupboards.

I wonder if it's full of bright, red berries, like these?

The teacup and saucer is a little charity shop find from a few years ago.  It's by Johnson Bros, made in England, and has a pattern not dissimilar to my favourite and much loved Evesham pattern from Royal Worcester porcelain, but this is by , and was just 50p. Who doesn't love a bargain?

My fat quarters for my Christmas face masks have arrived.  They are so lovely, I can't wait to work with them.  They won't all go for face masks, I love the prints too much and think a patchwork table runner for my entrance might be on the agenda too.  Aren't they just darling?

I have prewashed one set on 60 degrees, ready for mask making, the other set {identical} will make some soft furnishings..  I do wish I ordered yardage now, but then Empress Mills has recently had in some heavenly designed fabrics by Lewis and Irene which are rather delicious too. 

Here's a spot of colouring I did on a heavy printed cardstock using alcohol ink pens.  I wonder if I could use it to refurbish an old tray using Mod Podge and a suitable sealer, for it perfectly fits into the base?

As I type this, Wales is facing the prospect in the coming week of a second three week long lockdown, or "Circuit Breaker" as they are calling it,. to try and stop the spread of the "You Know What" as it is now spinning out of control.  We are approaching winter, and with seasonal colds and 'flu to deal with, this step is being taken to try to reduce the "R" number in order to protect the NHS.  God bless them all!  Why, oh why don't people do as they've been asked and socially distance themselves and wear masks.?  It's such a small and simple thing to do.

It is my birthday this coming week, and it's going to be a strange one.  I can't even say it will be "just another day" because days in our world are not days as we know them at all now.  Although we speak on the phone several times a week, it is the first time in years I will not meet up with my Godmother, who I have not seen since February.  I will be indulging myself with treats at home instead.  Two days after my birthday marks the second anniversary of my mother's passing, and all the sadness this brings will be amplified because I will not be able to light a candle for her at church..  These are, indeed, difficult days but we must all pull together and make these sacrifices to help our fellow humans through this ongoing crisis.

Until next time

Stay safe and stay well

Deborah xo

The Heart in My Art

Hello Friends!

One thing I discovered during lockdown, if later rather than sooner, is that my days always go better if I start them off with something creative.  This can be anything.  Writing Morning Pages, making art, crafting, baking, photography, blogging, or gardening. Anything that gets me creating, making something useful or pretty, and, importantly, that distracts me from the trials of the world.  It clears my mind of those unwanted thoughts, the voices that disturb and distract, it sharpens my focus.  Getting creative with housework doesn't count.

For some time, I have put my creativity mostly into baking, which probably hasn't done me any good.  All those yummy, calorie laden cakes and fresh baked bread which require consumption! {which reminds me, today it's scones}  I think we've all done our fair share of comfort eating in recent months. 

Quite simply, even though I am not very good at it, art used to be my world, but my heart has not been in my art for some time; it's always been on the periphery, but never where it truly belongs, which is at the centre of my being.  As my life's purposes changed over several years from art student, to a string of jobs including National Trust employee, to full time care giver, I have gone from being in an art studio all day long to barely having enough time to shower, brush my teeth and comb my hair.  

Slowly, my heart slipped out of my art and, while there was little I could do about it, I missed it and grieved for its absence in my life.  Sometimes you have to be engulfed by the dark so you can see how bright the light shines.

Recently, as the need to create through the media of art returns to my life, I have been doodling, and playing with colour and {mostly} paint and watercolours.  I tried to get myself back into the swing of things during ICAD 2020 but fell by the wayside so quickly that it shocked me to the core.  I have no idea why, I have always enjoyed, and completed, the 61 day challenge. 

Here are some of the pieces I did, and considering I have done little or no art in years it was like going from nought to sixty in three seconds.

I enjoyed doing what I did, but knew there was no point in forcing myself.  {note to self:  Hearts, sunflowers, and mushrooms seem to be a recurring theme in my work}  Nothing good ever comes from forcing it.

So, time passed, my creativity continued to channel into baking, inclement weather governed my spasmodic gardening, and then there was baking, and more baking. Until a few weeks ago when cleaning some shelves, I found some old colouring books and I pulled out my paints again.  I am not very good at drawing, so colouring books give me the lines to play with my paints.  I love few things more than pushing paint and colour around on paper.

Here's a few of the pages I did from the Johanna Basford "Enchanted Forest" book.

These first three images are a two page spread I tried to colour in a graduated rainbow

her work is so intricate and detailed, sometimes I struggle to complete a page, so this one sits awaiting my patience to return!

I thought about participating in Inktober but it didn't speak to me.

Here's some pages from my on the go A5 pocket sketch book.  I love how the media sometimes bleeds through and gives a different look from the other side.

This stylised tree is a motif I return to from time to time and work through in different ways

So, for now, as the gardening winds down and the soil and borders and pots and containers are put to bed for the Winter; as the calorie laden baking has to be reconsidered; as mask making continues; and as I once more turn to the daily practice of Morning Pages, so I will make time during the day for art.  I know my heart has returned to my art, and I know I will be all the better for it, no matter how small a piece I do each day.

Do you have any creative practices that keep your mind and soul together? We all need a creative distraction in these peculiar times in which we live.

Until next time,

Stay safe, Stay well

Deborah xo

A Little Box of Cosy Hugs

Hello Friends!

Thank you to everyone who left such lovely comments on my last blog.  Your words and kindness touched my heart.

Much as I enjoy playing with fonts, I like this one, Eagle Lake, the best, so I shall stick with it for a while.  It is a nostalgic reminder of my schooldays, when I loved my art class, especially when we had calligraphy days!  We only had black or blue India Ink, but oh, what fun making all those deliciously swirly marks on paper, and the joy of creating small panels of words was inspirational.  I was good at calligraphy, and was a much favoured pupil as I was allowed a pot of both blue and black ink!

We've had some lovely sunny days, mostly a little windy, but, oh! my! the temperatures have dropped like a stone, and my lovely neighbour over the garden wall and I are in full agreement, it's time to put away the Summer clothes and bring out our cooler weather things.  Sad, but true, although I see it as an opportunity to indulge in hygge!

When I first encountered that word, hygge, I didn't know it was pronounced hoo-gah, and I kept switching between higgie or hugger. Well, my pronunciation was off, but the concept was already here, for hygge, to me, is like living in a cosy box of little hugs that comfort us in the colder, darker days of Autumn, right through into early Spring. I have always lived a hygge life, it just didn't have a name before.

Someone is playing Peek a Boo!

I think hygge is a different thing for different people.  Some of the delights of hygge that are special to me are my warm, cosy living room with its heavy curtains that keep out the long, dark evenings; sitting by candlelight and burning aromatherapy oils; snuggling under soft, cotton quilts and pillows; sipping mugs of steaming hot chocolate; a nip of home made sloe gin from my hip flask on a long cold walk; the scents in the kitchen of pumpkin spice, cinnamon and nutmeg; reading books {especially revisiting the old, familiar stories of old}; and quiet, slow activities such as painting and colouring in, knitting, or sewing a cosy quilt.  

Hygge is a full cake tin or two, and baking my favourite cakes, such as Madeira Cake, rich and dense, full of ground almonds.  The kitchen fills with the fragrance of almonds and lemons when this is baking.  Madeira Cake is so called as it was once a favoured thing to eat with a glass of Madeira wine.  I'll second that!  

 My other favourite cake tin filler is Seed Cake. Another one that when baking fragrances the kitchen with the scent of Caraway seed and oranges.  Although both cakes look similar, they have their own unique qualities, and both are a perfect accompaniment for a mug of tea at Elevenses or Threeses.

It's taking a long walk along the Welsh country lanes, wrapped up warmly in a knitted hat, scarf and gloves, wearing my hiking boots with chunky socks that wrinkle around my ankles keeping out the cold as it nips at my feet, then coming home, rosy cheeked and red nosed, into a warm and welcoming cottage for a hot drink with a piece of cake, snuggling in my favourite chair by a toasty warm fire. 

I can tick the boxes for all of the above, except the toasty, warm fire, and that is something I miss so much, although the older I get I don't miss cleaning out the ashes and chopping the wood!

It's filling the kitchen with the fragrant scents, and hustle and bustle of baking for the freezer, and cooking up the hedgerow harvests.  I love making applesauce for the Winter days ahead, from my own homegrown apples.  This is a favourite gizmo of mine.  It's a very old design, although mine is new, and has remained unchanged for many, many years.  A true testament to "If it's not broken, don't mend it" if ever there was. Come apple season, I wouldn't be without it.  In under ten seconds, it peels, cores and slices a large apple.  Incredibly time saving when you have pounds and pounds of apples to process.

It's so many more than those things, and it will be uniquely different to all of us, so I hope you'll share, in the comments, your own personal hygge.

Over the years I seem to have accidentally fallen into collecting woollen blankets.  I don't know how it happened, it just did, and now I have quite a few, all travel and throw size so very useful to keep on my sofas and arm chairs if needed.  Some even roll up quite nicely to fit in a picnic basket or back pack too.  I'm saving the blankets for another blog.

Maybe Henry "Bomber" Hedgehog has one in his backpack? What do you think?  He's certainly all set for a day out rambling across the byways and country roads, with his binoculars and pipe, and his red beret.  Quite the dapper chap indeed.

Autumn days means time spent in the garden, when the weather permits, of course!  There's always lots of work to do, clearing and cleaning, and generally tidying up to tuck up and put the garden to bed for the Winter. Just the other day, I snatched a few hours between the winds and horizontal rain, and hidden away in a corner where I keep old pot and bits and bobs, I found this joyful bloom!

It's a deep pink Kaffir lily!  I already have the paler pink, and plenty of it too, for it spreads like wildfire, but I have always wanted this deeper pink, and it looks as if it's volunteered itself so I must find it a spot in the borders. 

Until next time

Stay safe and stay well

Deborah xo

Autumn Is Here

Hello Friends!

I do sometimes state the obvious in my choice of titles, don't I, and unless you live in the southern hemisphere, then Autumn is most definitely here.

This font is called Architect's Daughter. I am not sure how readable it is, but as I am still playing with fonts I'll give it a go, although I very much favour the last one, Eagle Lake. I wish I knew how to change the fonts on the headers and sidebars of the template though.

The official, astrological start of Autumn was barely days upon us when we had our first taste of late Autumnal weather.  We've had two or three days now of the kind of unpredictable weather that changes within minutes, and have had horrible, short, sharp hailstone showers that I'm glad I was not caught out in!

From this {short video which I hope will work for you}

To this

to this

In minutes.  It's ridiculous.

I have done a little decorating for Autumn. I think it always helps cheer me up as the stormy days and longer nights come in.  I don't have a lot of Autumn decorations, but this Summer, hidden away in the attic, I found a big box of all sorts of pine cones I've gathered over the years.  They've all been thoroughly bleached and oven baked to make sure they are bug and disease free, and might be why they've kept so fresh for so long too.

If you knew how much I love pinecones, you'll know I could barely contain my excitement.  Just look at them!

There are teasels, walnuts, a few conkers, and maybe an acorn or two

Lots of different pine cones, all deliciously Fibonacci and so many shades of brown!

Then, there are these, my pride and joy, the Big Ones, which I've photographed alongside a medium jar Yankee Candle for size comparison, I guess they are around ten inches tall.

Little beauties, aren't they, although not really so little?

I have a little, antique, Deacon's bench in my hall, and have added some artificial sunflowers {the most realistic ones I could find} and some felt, crochet and pottery gourds.

I took the Autumn patterned fabric cloth away, it made it too cluttered.  I will use it elsewhere.

I also like to bring out books that are seasonally themed, and found this lovely one on my shelves, which covers all the seasons, so is aptly named, The Seasons. It is a charming anthology of {mostly} poetry with scenes of a bucolic nature on every page.  Some are in delicate colour, most are monochromatic.  

We'll take a browse through some of my other Autumn themed books in the coming weeks.

Since I had the gas fire taken out, the grate has looked rather bare and unwelcoming, so I've filled it with pinecones.  It looks so much better, and I do believe The Pretty Baa Lambs approve. 

Some individual photos of some of the more interesting pine cones I have collected.

Although not specifically autumnal, I found this little cup and two tiny saucer-like plates in a charity shop a good while ago, for just 50 pence. The colours and leaf pattern just say Autumn to me.

For fans of the Great British Bake Off, or Great British Baking Show as it's known across the Pond, isn't it great to have it back on our screens? Finally, a small sense of normality, and what a sacrifice they all made, being locked away for the duration of the filming.  I feel like dancing, and already disagree with the judges! 

Miss Emily E Claire and Beatrice Badger are so happy, they baked their own cake to celebrate.  

I confess, I am very fond of Emily, I rather fancy myself in that sweet, window pane check dress, apron and mob cap!  The little board is a plaque that belonged to my Grandmother, a gift from one of her sisters.  I come from a long line of good cooks!

By now, I am sure you've all heard the joyous news from Buckingham Palace that Princess Eugenie and her husband, Mr Jack Brooksbank are expecting their first child in the New Year.  Finally, some good news to hear, and to look forward to.

Until next time

Stay Safe, Stay Well

Deborah xo